I Want to be by Your Side
by Shippingsempai
Summary: Rin moves dorm rooms.


With every clothing and item stored away in a box, Nitori could feel himself getting sadder and sadder. Rin doesn't notice his reserved behavior but instead keeps chattering away like nothing's wrong.

"Ai? Are you listening?" Rin suddenly says over his shoulder, throwing a concerned glance at him.

"S-sorry, I drifted off," he half-heartedly apologizes.

Rin gives him a knowing, understanding look. "I'll still visit you know. It's not like I'm moving away to another city so it's not that big of a deal."

Nitori feels a bitter resentment lodge in his throat as he thinks, _Rin how can you be so clueless? Do you really not know how I feel about you? All I ever wanted was to be the one by your side. _

"Y-you're right," he responds.

Rin gives him another understanding look and suddenly announces, "Let me buy you some ice cream!"

"Why?"

"Well, if you're going to make a big deal about this then we might as well have a going away party."

"I hardly think that ice cream qualifies as a going away party," Nitori counters but he feels his mood lighten at the prospect of getting ice cream with him.

"Don't be nitpicky. Come on, we can get it at the vending machine outside," Rin says as he walks out of the room and Nitori bounds to catch him.

"Is this okay? For you to suddenly stop packing?"

"It's fine. I'm done. Sousuke is coming to get it my stuff so by the time we get back, it'll be gone."

After that, they walk side by side silently, not much to be said. All the second-year wants at this moment is to hold Rin's hand and to hear him tell him that he'll stay and he should've never thought about leaving. But that scenario was about as unlikely as him making it on the Samezuka relay team. And, as with all his made up scenarios, he just silently ignores it and tries to focus on the present.

"What do you want?"

"Strawberry Ice Cream?"

"Don't say it like it's a question," Rin teases.

"Now who's being nitpicky?"

"I took a page from your book," Rin teases more, leaning closer to Nitori as the machine spits out his ice cream "Here."

"Thanks."

"It was only 400 yen," he waves off, biting into his own ice cream.

"No, I mean thanks for everything," Nitori shyly says, immediately regretting it and covering up his embarrassment by focusing on eating his ice cream.

"Hmm? I should be the one thanking you. You somehow managed to put up with me all last year. Who knew that we'd be here now, eating ice cream under the stars?" Rin wistfully thinks, leaning on the vending machine "I'm glad I met you Ai."

Nitori feels a blush rising on his neck and he desperately tries to hide it by practically burying himself in his ice cream. "I'm glad I met you too, Rin. I-I have to tell you something-"

"One sec, I've got to throw my wrapper away but I'll be back in a sec, 'kay?" He heads toward the next available trash can and disappears around the corner.

Once he's out of sight, Nitori lets out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. How can Rin be so smart yet so oblivious? Nitori can't find the energy to eat his ice cream or even prevent it from melting on his knuckles; all he can do is suppress the oncoming tears welling in his eyes.

But, soon he can't find enough energy to even do that.

"I love you so much Rin. Why can't you see that? All I ever wanted was to be the one you confided in and trusted. That's all. I wanted for you to look at me the same way I look at you." he sobs and rests his forehead on the vending machine. He sinks down to the ground and on his knees.

"Do you really feel that way?" Rin comes around the corner with a serious face.

Nitori's heat breaks. "Don't look at me please. I'm sorry."

"Do you?" Rin sinks to the floor along with Nitori. Beats of silence pass with Rin's intense gaze questioning Nitori's tear ridden eyes. "I want to be by your side too, Ai." He rests his forehead on his and chokes out a sob of his own. "Thank you for always being with me. I don't know what I feel towards you exactly but I want to talk to you, to buy ice cream with you, to be the one you cry with. So please, _please_ don't tell me you were serious when you said that."

Nitori's eyes widen and he stutters out "I was serious." Rin smiles and wraps his arms around Nitori calmly, nuzzling his nose in his hair.

"Thank you, Ai," he whispers, planting a kiss on his cheek, mere centimeters from his lips. They stayed like this for a while before they both started to shiver from the elements. They walk back to the dorm, hand-in-hand, like Nitori had always wanted.  
But reality of their situation dawned on him and he tugged him to a halt in front of Rin's new dorm room.

"Please don't leave," he pleads.

Rin actually looks like he's considering it for a second before he ruefully smiles and shakes his head. "I already promised Sousuke that I'd be his dorm mate. You'll be fine. We'll visit each other every day. And, no matter who we dorm with, we'll always be by each other's side's."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm not letting us drift apart." He earnestly says before lifting him off the ground in a hug, squelching any of Nitori's remaining objections. "Now go back to your dorm room and get to know your new roommate."

Nitori looks at Rin dryly and says, "I never knew you had a sense of humor."

Rin puts him down and says, "See you tomorrow" before heading off into his new room.


End file.
